A Sea
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- A Sea
We huddled in the smallest room, or twoOf us, two people might not make a huddleWe leaned together, your head on my shoulderSometimes, my head on yours, my hair, the newGray hairs that part the black hairs from the blackExactly as if once they were a seaNow parted by emerging land, the grayHairs touching your jaw, where it meets your neckThe slope between your jaw and your neck, touchingYour ear, and when you leaned your head on mine, yourEar must have rested then on the narrow line thereAcross the gray, from black to black, exactlyAs if to make a bridge, as if you might hearThe secret that would hold the sea together [End Page 173]
SHANE MCCRAE’s most recent book is Sometimes I Never Suffered. He has received a Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Whiting Writer’s Award. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
